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comfort to him who ftands trembling on the brink of his own climacterick.

Length of life is diftributed impartially to very different modes of life in very different climates; and the mountains have no greater examples of age and health than the low lands, where I was introduced to two ladies of high quality; one of whom, in her ninety-fourth year, prefided at her table with the full exercise of all her powers; and the other has attained her eighty-fourth, without any diminution of her vivacity, and with little reason to accuse time of depredations on her beauty.

In the islands, as in most other places, the inhabitants are of different rank, and one does not encroach here upon another. Where there is no commerce nor manufacture, he that is born poor can scarcely become rich; and if none are able to buy estates, he that is born to land cannot annihilate his family by felling it. This was once the state of these countries. Perhaps there is no example, till within a century and half, of any family whose estate was alienated otherwise than by violence or forfeiture. Since money has been brought amongst them, they have found, like others, the art of spending more than they receive; and I saw with grief the chief of a very

ancient

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ancient clan, whofe ifland was condemned by law to be fold for the fatisfaction of his creditors.

The name of highest dignity is Laird, of which there are in the extensive Isle of Sky only three, Macdonald, Macleod, and Mackinnon. The Laird is the original owner of the land, whose natural power must be very great, where no man lives but by agriculture; and where the produce of the land is not conveyed through the labyrinths of traffick, but paffes directly from the hand that gathers it to the mouth that eats it. The Laird has all thofe in his power that live upon his farms. Kings can, for the most part, only exalt or degrade. The Laird at pleafure can feed or starve, can give bread, or withhold it. This inherent power was yet ftrengthened by the kindness of confanguinity, and the reverence of patriarchal authority. The Laird was the father of the Clan, and his tenants commonly bore his name. And to these principles of original command was added, for many ages, an exclufive right of legal jurifdiction.

This multifarious, and extenfive (bligation operated with force (carely credible. Every duty, moral or political, was abforbed in affection and adherence to the Chief. Not many years have paffed fince the clans knew no law but the Laird's will. He told them to whom they should

be

be friends or enemies, what King they fhould obey, and what religion they should profefs.

When the Scots firft rofe in arms against the fucceffion of the house of Hanover, Lovat, the Chief of the Frafers, was in exile for a rape. The Frasers were very numerous, and very zealous against the government. A pardon was fent to Lovat. He came to the English camp, and the clan immediately deferted to him.

Next in dignity to the Laird is the Tacksman; a large taker or leafe-holder of land, of which he keeps part, as a domain, in his own hand, and lets part to under tenants. The Tackfman is neceffarily a man capable of fecuring to the Laird the whole rent, and is commonly a collateral relation. These tacks, or fubordinate poffeffions, were long confidered as hereditary, and the occupant was diftinguished by the name of the place at which he refided. He held a middle station, by which the highest and the lowest orders were connected. He paid rent and reverence to the Laird, and received them from the tenants. This tenure ftill fubfifts, with its original operation, but not with the primitive stability. Since the islanders, no longer content to live, have learned the defire of growing rich, an ancient dependent is in danger of giving way to a higher bidder, at the expence of domeftic dignity and

hereditary

hereditary power. The ftranger, whose money buys him preference, confiders himself as paying for all that he has, and is indifferent about the Laird's honour or fafety. The commodioufnefs of money is indeed great; but there are fome advantages which money cannot buy, and which therefore no wife man will by the love of money be tempted to forego.

I have found in the hither parts of Scotland, men not defective in judgment or general experience, who confider the Tackfman as a ufelefs burden of the ground, as a drone who lives upon the product of an estate, without the right of property, or the merit of labour, and who impoverishes at once the landlord and the tenant. The land, fay they, is let to the Tacksman at fixpence an acre, and by him to the tenant at tenpence. Let the owner be the immediate landlord to all the tenants; if he sets the ground at eight-pence, he will increase his revenue by a fourth part, and the tenant's burthen will be diminished by a fifth.

Those who purfue this train of reafoning, seem not fufficiently to inquire whither it will lead them, nor to know that it will equally fhew the propriety of fuppreffing all whole. fale trade, of shutting up the shops of every man who fells what he does not make, and of extruding all whofe agency and profit in

tervene

tervene between the manufacturer and the confumer. They may, by stretching their understandings a little wider, comprehend, that all those who by undertaking large quantities of manufacture, and affording employment to many labourers, make themselves confidered as benefactors to the public, have only been robbing their workmen with one hand, and their customers with the other. If Crowley had fold only what he could make, and all his Smiths had wrought their own iron with their own hammers, he would have lived on lefs, and they would have fold their work for more. The falaries of fuperintendents and clerks would have been partly faved, and partly fhared, and nails been fometimes cheaper by a farthing in a hundred. But then if the Smith could not have found an immediate purchaser, he must have deserted his anvil; if there had by accident at any time been more fellers than buyers, the workmen must have reduced their profit to nothing, by underfelling one another; and as no great stock could have been in any hand, no fudden demand of large quantities could have been answered, and the builder must have stood still till the nailer could fupply him.

According to thefe schemes, univerfal plenty is to begin and end in univerfal mifery. Hope and emulation will be utterly extinguished; and as all must

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